Glitch
by himitsutsubasa
Summary: Sherlock tries to remove a glitch only to find something bigger to deal with.


Sherlock lay on the couch rereading the code. It wasn't any normal computer code. It was his code. The one that made his hard drive connect and perform. And he sat plugged into a computer, correcting a few mistakes. There were none to correct. No glitches meant what he looked for was a foreign pathogen.

It would have been simpler if he had done it using his recovery system but this allowed John to rescue him if something went awry. The good doctor stood in the kitchen making a cup of tea. He had remarked several times that Sherlock was the most advanced bio-robotics system he had ever laid his eyes on. Sherlock knew that was designed the system himself after all. His firewalls were simple but unavoidable. No one made it past the first few.

Sherlock chuckled. Humans were so stupid. They expected a truly complicated code but all it required was the eternity key. And the key was in the kitchen cooling off a burn.

Sherlock quickly wrote a new code. It had to be perfectly timed. This was one of the methods that scared many bio-robotics technicians. Perform a clean-catch. It required wiping the drive and in the 2.3 milliseconds it took to process the order, then insert a seed code that would allow the person into the hard drive to crush the viruses. It was a difficult method that applied only to bio-robotics. No one used it unless the virus was seriously bothering the system or causing failures.

John advised him against it many times before. His greatest fear was that there would be a sudden black out. That black out would take Sherlock with it but Sherlock insisted that it would be fine. He had his own generator, courtesy of Mycroft. That wasn't any comfort to John but Sherlock was touched. And that was why he was purging his main frame.

Sherlock was not supposed to feel comforted or reassured. Not in the least. The system that he had been given as a child let him have emotions. Years of tinkering and drugs wore that away. Last time he checked his body was still 65% human but that human part only served to stop him from sinking when he swam laps at The Pool. He was over half robotics and every piece was a specialty. Sherlock designed and oversaw the making of every piece. Even the wires were a special alloy that would not disrupt homeostasis.

"John, the code is complete." He sat patiently as john finished bandaging his finger and walked into the kitchen.

"Okay, Sherlock, are you sure?"

"Yes." He had to be rid of that pesky virus that meddled with his heart. The thing wouldn't stop racing every time John got too close. John never noticed.

John gave him a thumbs-up after reading the code. The doctor was better at treating humans than bio-robotics, but he knew a faulty code when he saw it.

"Three." The customary countdown began. John flicked on the backup generator. They couldn't risk losing Sherlock.

"Two." Sherlock put his hand on John's and squeezed. The doctor stared at him in surprise.

"One." His screen blacked out.

* * *

><p>For a moment, he saw the inside of his mind palace. It still had the grand walkways and the maze of passages. It still had a throne room that held two thrones, instead of the traditional one. Then he was ripped out of it. And he was surrounded by white.<p>

White. Why was there white? This wasn't normal. This wasn't coded. It excited him.

White meant three things. The battery was out. Impossible, since they had a backup generator in case of that, and he left the laptop battery full. Then it must have overheated. Unlikely but not impossible. The room was a few degrees lower to keep the computer from overheating. The laptop had been relatively cool to the touch but that could guarantee nothing. Last was that something interrupted John. The doors were locked and windows barred. So that was out. The only person in the room was… Sherlock dismissed the notion. John couldn't have. Never. A nagging line of code tugged at him. Why? Sherlock listed all of John's attributes and history. But the line stayed.

"Because, I trust him and he would never do anything to hurt me intentionally." John risked his life. John bandaged him up. John cleaned his parts. There were only three people in the world that he had let clean his circuitry: his mother, himself, and John. The first was unavoidable. The second was natural. The third was a matter of trust. He trusted John. Not just with his parts. Those could be replaced. Not just with the key. That could be rewritten. He trusted John with his heart. And that was what caused the whole problem. Moriarty took advantage of it once. That was why Sherlock was determined to rid himself of the virus. So where was it? It hadn't appeared in the limbo. The virus wasn't at the main or any other walk way that led out of the mind palace. The virus would have tried to escape.

That meant the virus was craftier than he thought. Or there was no virus. The last scared him. It scared Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock didn't want to consider the feeling for John but ended up doing it any way. He had no idea how long he would be in white. It could be minutes or even days before he was released.

"John is…" He started every sentence with the two words. He had over three hundred hits in the first five milliseconds.

"John likes…" He ran through the list and paused at the blurred one. He erased the smudge and revealed his name.

"John loves…" There were fewer things on this list but he was still on it.

"John loves Sherlock Holmes, me." He read out loud.

"John loves me." The words permeated the empty space, filling it and then dissipating. There were no echoes in the white. The words made his heart take a leap. John loves me. just accepting the fact mad him happy. Then…

"I love John Watson." It felt good to say it. Louder.

"I love John." Finally, he said it.

"I love you." The words were so cliché. So overused and underappreciated, but it felt perfect. Short, sweet, to the point. It fit John perfectly. All 34,752 cubic centimeters of him.

And then, he felt the familiar sensation of being ripped back. Back into reality.

* * *

><p>"Sherlock? Are you awake?" A blurry face hovered over him.<p>

"John, I am responsive. I am awake." He sat up with a groan. After the weightlessness of the white, the real world felt very…heavy.

"Sherlock, I thought I lost you for a second. Turns out Moriarty planted a code in your laptop. I had to patch you up with mine. You are lucky I sent myself a copy of your code. I swear, I thought I lost you for a second. What did you download? Or maybe it was an e-mail attachment? He hacked into my website. Could he have done the same to your laptop? What if he is watching us now?" John was rambling.

"I am alive so you did very well, doctor. Moriarty is not" Nerves of steel were probably the only thing that kept John moving. And those promptly gave out.

Sherlock caught John as the man almost hit the floor. He sprinkled some moderately cooled tea on John's face.

"John?" John's eyes opened with a start. He was responsive.

"Sherlock? What?" He looked around. Sherlock was cradling him in his arms.

"John, you fainted." John blinked and sat up. He was back to normal. He almost got up but didn't Sherlock watched John intently. Why?

"Sherlock, was it true?" Sherlock wondered "it" was and if it was true. If he told John about his childhood, he would deny everything. Everything.

"What?" John's face turned slightly red.

"That…that you…you…you li…" John was so cute when he stuttered. Sherlock mentally slapped himself. No, never tell John that. He will have his Browning drawn faster than the world's fasted rapper could say "how sweet". John stopped altogether knowing Sherlock would piece it together. Sherlock did. He also pieced together that he should check his code for glitches that could result in sleep talking.

"I meant it." He leaned in for a kiss. John was startled but reacted the way Sherlock knew he would. "I love you."

* * *

><p>Sherlock oneshot. The idea came to me as I cleaned out my mind palace (it's a library but "mind library" sounds strange, no?). It turned out the Palace program was runnning perfectly fine. It was the CPU that was acting up. I wanted to correct the glitch but I guess you can't delete a mistake code. It doesn't happen.<p>

Wall is up.

I want to mention "Upon This Throne" by ifonlynotever. I allude to the fiction in this work. Read the story and see if you can catch it.

Thanks everyone.


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